


The Influence of Betrayal

by M_L_Davis



Series: The Masterpiece of Will Shaw [4]
Category: The Cold Light of Day (2012)
Genre: Amnesia, Bedwetting, F/M, Injury, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Potty-mouth 10 year old, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 02:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19098001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_L_Davis/pseuds/M_L_Davis
Summary: Josh does something that has consequences. But, are they good or bad? Only Will knows.





	The Influence of Betrayal

* * *

Josh rolls his eyes when he notices his brother standing by the washer, one hand on the machine, the other curled in the hem of his shirt.

Hypnosis was supposed to make Will’s problem better, but instead, it’s just seemed to make things worse.

Mom and Dad won’t speak to each other, and Will still pisses the bed every night.

“What’s up?” he calls, and Will flinches, hand jerking up to cover his face. Probably to hide the fact that he’s crying.

Twelve fucking years old and he’s just a big baby. Josh rolls his eyes again.

He knows his brother was hurt, but that was years ago. He should’ve gotten over it by now. Instead, Will seems bound and determined to hold onto the past with two hands.

Fuck that shit.

Josh stands up from the table, dumps his cereal bowl in the sink, and then grabs his hat. “Get a move on,” he orders his brother. “We’ve got school.”

It’s a new fucking school. The third in as many years. All the faces and emotions are starting to blur together. The only constant is the sour smell of urine as Will stares longingly at the washing machine where his blankets are no doubt being sanitized.

“Come on, you fucking oaf.” Josh doesn’t mean to hit Will as hard as he does, but oops. Will stumbles back, slipping on probably a puddle of his own piss and falling to crack his head against the low counter they’re supposed to fold clothes on.

Blood. Holy shit, that’s blood on the floor.

Josh doesn’t know what to do. He’s only fucking ten. So he yells for Mom.

Dad is off at work right now otherwise he would have preferred his father for this kind of thing.

Mom hurries in from where she was gardening. She stares wide-eyed at Will. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Josh grabs a towel off the shelf and thrusts it at Mom. She doesn’t move, and he huffs in annoyance. Why does he always have to be the adult around here?

The towel soaks up the blood, but Will doesn’t respond even when Josh digs his fingers into the wound.

“What are you doing?” Mom finally shoves him aside, gathering Will to her chest. Will’s head lolls comically, and Josh stifles a hysteric giggle at the thought that all Will’s brains, what little he had, is dripping down his back, leaking from the hole Josh punched in his skull.

As if the fucker never deserved to have his clock cleaned.

Mom drags Will out to the car, struggling to set him in the backseat with the gentle care she only ever shows Will. Josh watches her, distance and coldness growing in his chest. Then, he moves to help her, taking Will’s legs and folding them in until the door can be shut.

He sits in the back with him, the towel pressed to his head again.

Mom floors it, spinning the tires and burning rubber before the car lurches forward. Lead foot, pedal to the metal, like a bat out of hell.

Josh conjures up every stupid cliché he can to describe how Mom races to the hospital. It’s not like Will is dying.

He’s still breathing even if he hasn’t opened his eyes. He’s just pretending, like he always does, just waiting for all the attention to be focused on him. Not like it ever isn’t. Dad can’t stand Will but he still pulls his punches mostly.

They bump over a curb and roar into the parking lot in front of the Emergency Room. Mom slams the car into park and then hurtles herself out the door, hurricaning her way to the backseat and dragging Will out with her.

She’s met at the entrance by a medical team with a gurney. Josh stays in the car, the bloody towel covering his lap. He doesn’t want to go in. Doesn’t want to be told what else is wrong with his brother. Doesn’t want to learn what else he has to tiptoe around.

He clenches his fists around the soggy material, trying to rein in his anger.

Josh is drained; tired of pretending they’re okay, of trying to pretend that Will is going to get better.

He’s tired of living in this family.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, blood drying between his fingers while somewhere inside, his brother is being cared for. Eventually, Mom comes back to the car, digs through the glove box, and then leans against the passenger’s side and smokes five cigarettes in quick succession.

Josh coughs, and Mom startles enough that she drops the half-empty pack.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” he says, conversationally. He’s bullshitting her. He’s known every time that she lights up. She smokes so much and so frequently that she hasn’t noticed him sneaking a few out of each pack. He sells them at school, insurance against being beaten up because no matter how much self-defense or gun handling Dad teaches him, he looks and acts enough like a nerd that the bullies of every fucking school they’ve ever been in have targeted him.

Mom eyes him oddly and then picks up and taps the pack closed, tossing it back into the glove box. “Come on,” she says after a long, uncomfortable silence in which Josh stares her down and she looks everywhere but at his face or his hands. “Your brother needs you.”

He snorts, tossing the towel to the floor. He doesn’t argue though, too tired to care really, stepping out into the mid-fall sunshine. Will’s birthday was just last week. He got a dirt bike from Dad and a fancy set of blankets from Mom.

Will hasn’t used either of them.

He tried giving them to Josh but Dad caught them and yelled at Josh for taking his brother’s things. It’s the first time in a long time that Dad yelled at him. He’s always going off on Will for something or other but not the big elephant in the room that makes Will piss his bed every night and makes him have to see a therapist.

Mom grabs his shoulder and steers him toward the door, fingers hooked into his flesh like she’s afraid to let go in case he makes a break for it. Josh can’t lie; the thought gets more attractive the closer they get to the entrance.

Instead, he squares his shoulders and marches with his head held high.

“Go wash your hands.” Mom lets him go in front of a bathroom. “I’m going to try to find Will’s doctor. Stay in the waiting room when you’re done.”

Josh would argue but today’s been weird, so he does as she asks, taking a seat in the corner farthest from the check-in counter and the watchful eyes of the receptionist.

He draws his legs up to his chest and rests his chin on a knee.

He doesn’t have to wait too long. His legs are just barely asleep when Mom comes back and leads him down a short corridor to a curtained off room.

His brother is flat on his back, still on the gurney. Will is asleep or unconscious, and his head’s been bandaged. He’s resting easy.

“Stay here,” Mom orders. “I have to call your father now.”

Josh climbs onto the gurney with Will, head against his shoulder. They haven’t ever been really close like brothers are supposed to be, too aware of the fact that Will is Mom’s favorite and Josh is Dad’s and that the other parent doesn’t like the other’s favorite.

“I’m sorry I pushed you,” Josh says to the still air, holding his breath and hoping that apologizing will be enough to snap Will out of it.

Of course, life doesn’t work like that, and a nurse checking on Will shoos him away.

Mom comes back then, white-faced and angry. She’s followed by a doctor in a lab coat, stethoscope poking out of a pocket on his hip.

“He hit his head on a shelf. I don’t know. I didn’t see. Josh, tell Dr. Jeong what happened.”

While he is okay with apologizing to his unconscious brother, Josh has enough self-preservation to at least alter the truth for the doctor. “Will slipped and banged his head on this counter-thing in our house. He’s been like this ever since.”

“And how long ago?” The doctor’s English is really good, soft and nuanced, like the potato knish Grandma Abril makes sometimes.

“About two hours?” Josh guesses.

Dr. Jeong nods and then flashes a light in Will’s eyes. “We will scan him. Please wait outside until you are sent for. We will take good care of him.” He keeps a hand on Will’s head while he talks, and Mom watches it warily.

“I’d like to stay with him, please,” she says. “Recently, he was hurt—a different kind of hurt—and I—”

“Understood.”

Dad pops in then, taking Josh’s arm and leading him back to the waiting room where he interrogates him on what happened.

Five questions in and Josh breaks.

Dad’s expression doesn’t change, but he does flag a nurse to pass along the message about the inertia from the push.

Josh sits in miserable silence, staring at the tiled floor, at his not-clean-but-not-filthy sneakers and lopsided socks. He thinks of Will moving through the houses they’ve lived in, a ghost of his former self.

If Josh is honest with himself, he’d pushed Will because he’d thought that was how he could get his brother back. Instead, here he and Dad sit in a sterile waiting room while Mom watches the doctor take pictures of Will’s damaged brain.

“Is he going to die?” he asks, small.

Dad clears his throat, and the sound of it echoes inside Josh’s head. “No. It’s unlikely. He might have a hell of a headache for a while, but he should be completely fine in a few days.” He clears his throat again. “Josh, it’s not your fault. I want you to know that.”

Josh nods but he thinks _Lies_. He pushed Will to hurt him. Maybe not intending it to be this bad, but certainly hard enough to do something.

A nurse comes for them then, leading them to a room different from the triage area. Will’s on a bed now, Mom watching over him. She grabs Dad’s hand and pulls him from the room while Josh studies his brother.

He’s hooked up to a monitor and his bandage has been changed but otherwise, nothing else looks different.

He could be asleep aside from the wrap on his head and the pads on his chest.

Dr. Jeong opens the door, ushering Mom and Dad inside too. “He is fine. A mild concussion. There is no reason for him to still be unconscious. He should wake up soon.”

“Thank you,” Dad murmurs while Mom drags a chair to the bedside and sinks into it like her spine has just been yanked from her body. She clutches Will’s hand, pressing kisses to his skin.

It looks disgusting, and shame burns deep in Josh’s belly. He did this. Will deserves love.

“Go home, Martin.”

“No.”

An argument. Here. Nothing is ever going to be right again.

And then, Will opens his eyes with a little sigh, as if he’s just waking up instead of almost being in a coma.

Dr. Jeong summons a nurse and they exmine Will, checking his pupil dilation and motor responses.

Mom gets pushed back, and Dad grabs her in a one-armed hug. Josh ducks under the nurse’s reach and slots in next to the bed.

His brother smiles at him, a wan tilt to his lips, before the doctor draws his attention back to himself.

Will responds normally to their questions until they ask him if he knows where he is and what day it is.

Josh didn’t know that it was possible to lose so much time, but apparently that’s where they are now.

Will doesn’t remember the last three years, the last few houses. He thinks they’re still in São Tomé and Príncipe and that he’s just turned nine years old.

He glances at Mom, and the determination in her eyes is only matched by the hope on her face.

Josh understands immediately.

They’re going to lie to Will.

They’re going to pretend that it’s 1992 and just before Will’s ninth birthday.

He wonders if they’re also going to have to meet Dad’s “new” partner again. Miss Carack hasn’t been around since Mom accused Dad of sleeping with her just before the spear fishing incident.

Josh never liked her. She was always trying to spend time with Will alone, brushing Josh off like he was an annoying bee. He remembers how, just before Will’s eleventh birthday, she’d taught them both how to make margaritas.

Will has no capacity for things like that. He is barely even able to get Dad a beer out of the fridge on a good day. The only time he can accurately follow directions is on the track field.

He remembers Carrack taking Will down to the basement of the house in the Philippines, and with sudden clarity, Josh knows.

He knows what Carrack did to his brother, how she changed him.

And he knows that they’re all going to lie to Will now so that he won’t ever remember what happened to him.

It’s betrayal, plain and simple. But, the silver lining is that Josh knows who did it, and when he’s old enough to travel by himself, he’s going to kill that fucking bitch. Dad taught him how to fire a gun, how to load it, how to keep the recoil from kicking it out of his hands.

A head injury is not how Josh should have gotten his brother back, but now that he does, he has no intention of letting him go ever again.

* * *

 


End file.
